Ache
by Be Summer Rain
Summary: Needing someone there. Needing someone's arms.
1. Default Chapter

A/N: I have a longer (proper chapters, even!) fic in the works, I swear, but right now I'm quite stressed out and all I can write are odd drabble-y short things. So…here is an odd drabble-y short thing.

_Ache_

1.

Things had ended badly, and sometimes Olivia felt sorry about that. Regardless of his misconceptions, she hadn't meant to hurt him. He'd laugh if he heard that, his voice hollow. Just like him, near the end. Empty.

Perhaps she had been cruel, but the truth was, it _wasn't_ personal. He was attractive enough and she thought he understood her, just a little. But what he didn't understand was that the reasons that she'd needed him that night were the same reasons that she couldn't get close. Her relationships have always been hard and fast and over. She drew a sharp line between work and play, and he was desperately trying to blur that line. Olivia had never fallen before, and when she did it certainly wasn't going to be him. He was just a rookie, after all, and as it turned out, it wasn't only rejection that he couldn't handle.

2.

Let's pretend, he'd said, and that had been what set off the alarm bells in her head. Pretending led little girls in white dresses to alleys. He was a good kisser and he hadn't run away, so she was willing to let him in. Her judgment had been clouded, perhaps, by alcohol, and maybe by the ache of needing someone there. Of needing someone's arms.

3.

He was a risk-taker; she had to give him that. It was thrilling when she was younger. He lived for

adrenaline and so did she, for a while. And then he left and she found that she didn't mind as much as she thought she might.

Of all the people she never thought she'd see again, he was near the top of the list. But he walked through the door – thank goodness the Captain hadn't known about any previous entanglements, or he wouldn't have put them together. But in the end, she wasn't quite sure if this was a good thing or not. She wasn't sure about a lot of things, least of all him. She let him go and never laid awake.

4.

It isn't so much that she fell. It's been a gradual fading, lines blurring, moments meaning one thing and at the same time meaning just a little bit more. Forgetting where the boundaries are. Holding his gaze a little longer than she should, but she can't bring herself to look away.

He probably knows, she thinks, but then he's always been so good at wearing masks. Some days she can almost see through it, through gray and clouds and storm. This is when she realizes. It has always been Elliot, even before she knew it.

(tbc)


	2. 22

1.

He loved her. That is something he can hold on to through hurricanes; even standing in the midst of rubble and shattered lives, he can say with absolute certainty that he loved her. They were young and scared, a baby on the way, but love had never been the question. And he never thought it would be.

But storms rip through towns and towers fall and twenty year marriages come apart at the seams. A thousand maybes echo through his mind like thunder. A repetitious chorus with an erratic conductor, and nobody knew the music. He held his fingers against the inside of his wrist one night, just to see if it was holding steady. Heartbeat after heartbeat.

2.

He's always hated psychiatrists; he hated people digging around in his mind like he was some sort of an interesting case study. Subject appears to be under extreme stress, to have anger issues, to have marital problems. But a cop? Maybe that was a little different. Maybe someone like that could actually be useful to an investigation. And yes, maybe he was a little attracted to her, but more likely it was the cold rush of realizing that he was nearly single again, and nearly able to notice these things. He swallowed his ice water and felt the chill spread.

3.

She had a crush on him. Strange to call it that, as the word brought up memories of schoolgirls and whispers and notes passed under desks, but that's what he was told. He didn't know if it were true, and he didn't know what he'd do if it were. She was pretty, there was no denying that, but then her predecessor had been as well. And he's always been a little wary of lawyers.

4.

Somewhere in the middle of falling apart, he'd fallen for her. Beautiful and wounded. A fragile superhero. She had been the strength that held him together; she had forced him to keep walking. But when he presses his lips to hers one late night, walking her to her apartment, he doesn't know if either of them are strong enough to walk away from this. And the world tilts on its axis; everything is falling out of their control.

(the end)


End file.
